Bacteria and their viruses have coevolved for billions of years. This ancient and still ongoing
arms race has led bacteria to develop a vast antiphage arsenal. The development of high …

Mobile genetic elements are key to the evolution of bacteria and traits that affect host and
ecosystem health. Here, we use a framework of a hierarchical and modular system that …

Self versus non-self discrimination is a key element of innate and adaptive immunity across
life. In bacteria, CRISPR-Cas and restriction-modification systems recognize non-self nucleic …

CRISPR-associated transposons (CAST) are programmable mobile genetic elements that
insert large DNA cargos using an RNA-guided mechanism,–. CAST elements contain …

Pathogenic Acinetobacter species, most notably Acinetobacter baumannii, are a significant
cause of healthcare‐associated infections worldwide. Acinetobacter infections are of …

It has become clear in recent years that anti-phage defense systems cluster non-randomly
within bacterial genomes in so-called “defense islands”. Despite serving as a valuable tool …

Canonical CRISPR-Cas systems utilize RNA-guided nucleases for targeted cleavage of
foreign nucleic acids, whereas some nuclease-deficient CRISPR-Cas complexes have been …

CRISPR-Cas defense systems have been naturally coopted for guide RNA-directed
transposition by Tn7 family bacterial transposons. We find cyanobacterial genomes are rich …

Accessory genes are variably present among members of a species and are a reservoir of
adaptive functions. In bacteria, differences in gene distributions among individuals largely …

Three types of DNA methyl modifications have been detected in bacterial genomes, and
mechanistic studies have demonstrated roles for DNA methylation in physiological functions …